1796 in science

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The year 1796 in science and technology involved some significant events.

Contents 1 Astronomy 2 Mathematics 3 Medicine 4 Paleontology 5 Technology 6 Awards 7 Births 8 Deaths 9 References

Astronomy

• Pierre-Simon Laplace publishes ''Exposition du système du monde, his work on astronomy (mainly celestial mechanics) following Newton and Lagrange. He develops an analytical theory of tides, deduces the mass of the moon, improves calculation of cosmic orbits, and predicts that Saturn's rings will be found to rotate. Most notably, he propounds the modern nebular hypothesis, independently outlined by Kant.

Mathematics

• This is a productive year for the German mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss (b. 1777) and his work in number theory:^[1][2]
  • March 30 - He obtains conditions for the constructibility by ruler and compass of regular polygons, including the heptadecagon.^[3]
  • April 8 - He becomes the first to prove the quadratic reciprocity law, enabling determination of the solvability of any quadratic equation in modular arithmetic.
  • May 31 - He puts forward his prime number theorem on the distribution of prime numbers among the integers.
  • July 10 - He discovers that every positive integer is representable as a sum of at most three triangular numbers, noting in his diary "Heureka! num = Δ + Δ + Δ."
  • October 1 - He publishes a result on the number of solutions of polynomials with coefficients in finite fields.

Medicine

• May 14 - Edward Jenner administers the first smallpox vaccination.^[4]
• Franz Joseph Gall develops his theory of 'cranioscopy', a forerunner of phrenology.^[5]

Paleontology

• April - Georges Cuvier reads his paper Mémoires sur les espèces d'éléphants vivants et fossiles at the opening of the Institut National in Paris, demonstrating that species had become extinct.

Technology

• Completion of the first cast iron aqueducts, on the English canals
  • February - Holmes Aqueduct on the Derby Canal, designed by Benjamin Outram (demolished 1971).^[6]
  • March - Longdon-on-Tern Aqueduct on the Shrewsbury Canal, designed by Thomas Telford (extant).^[7]
• August 9 - Opening to traffic of the Wearmouth Bridge in England, designed by Thomas Paine in cast iron. The second in this material built after that at Ironbridge, but over twice as long, its span of 237 feet (72 m) makes it the world's longest single-span vehicular bridge extant at this date.^[8][9][10]
• Printing by lithography is invented by Aloys Senefelder.^[11]

Awards

• Copley Medal: George Atwood

Births

• February 10 - Henry De la Beche, geologist (d. 1855)
• February 22 - Adolphe Quetelet, mathematician and astronomer (d. 1874)
• June 1 - Nicolas Carnot, mathematician (d. 1832)
• July 29 - Walter Hunt, inventor (d. 1859)
• August 21 - James Lick, philanthropist who endowed the Lick Observatory (d. 1876)
• September 19 - Richard Harlan, zoologist (d. 1843)

Deaths

• May 1 - Alexandre Guy Pingré, French astronomer and naval geographer (b. 1711
• December 11 - Johann Daniel Titius, German astronomer (b. 1729)

References

1. ^ Dunnington, G. Waldo (2004). Carl Friedrich Gauss: Titan of Science (new ed.). Washington, DC: Mathematical Association of America. ISBN 0883855380. OCLC 53933110. 
2. ^ Hall, Tord (1970). Carl Friedrich Gauss: a Biography. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. ISBN 0262080400. OCLC 185662235. 
3. ^ Gauss, Carl Friedrich (1801). "§§365–366". Disquisitiones Arithmeticae. Leipzig. 
4. ^ Waldman, Thomas A. (2003). "Immunotherapy: past, present and future" (PDF). Nature Medicine 9 (3): 269–277. doi:10.1038/nm0303-269. PMID 12612576. http://www.nature.com/cgi-taf/DynaPage.taf?file=/nm/journal/v9/n3/full/nm0303-269.html&filetype=pdf. Retrieved 2011-07-18. 
5. ^ Graham, Patrick (2001). Phrenology: revealing the mysteries of the mind (videorecording (DVD)). Richmond Hill, Ont.: American Home Treasures. ISBN 0-7792-5135-0. 
6. ^ "Benjamin Outram (1764–1805)". http://www.brocross.com/iwps/pages/outram/bn-outram.htm. Retrieved 2011-07-18. 
7. ^ Brown, Peter. "Thomas Telford". http://www.peter-quita.demon.co.uk/articles/Telford.pdf. Retrieved 2011-07-18. 
8. ^ Tyrrell, Henry Grattan (1911). History of Bridge Engineering. Chicago. pp. 153–154. http://books.google.com/books?id=l0pDAAAAIAAJ&lpg=PA153&dq=210.%20The%20Sunderland%20bridge%20over%20the%20Wear%20at%20Wearmouth&pg=PA153. Retrieved 2011-08-16. 
9. ^ Troyano, Leonardo Fernández (2003). Bridge Engineering: a Global Perspective. London: Thomas Telford Publishing. p. 49. ISBN 0-7277-3215-3. 
10. ^ "Sunderland Wearmouth Bridge". Wearside Online. http://www.wearsideonline.com/Sunderland_Wearmouth_Bridge.html. Retrieved 2011-08-16. 
11. ^ Meggs, Philip B. (1998). A History of Graphic Design. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.. p. 146. ISBN 0-471-291-98-6.